DirectX 8 Unleashed

Prepare to be dazzled. Since its first version in 1995, DirectX has grown from an optional download into a must-have entertainment engine. The newest version, 8.0, firmly establishes DirectX as an integral part of the Windows-based multimedia experience.

Like all application programming interfaces (APIs), DirectX was designed to make the lives of software developers easier. Rather than write code for multiple combinations of hardware, programmers can write to APIs. Essentially, the majority of modern games, audio and video playing or editing applications, and 3-D design tools, rely on DirectX. This could mean that the API will account for positional audio between a game and a sound card, apply advanced graphic functions like environmental bump-mapping on a rendered 3-D image, or even enable a secondary DVD viewing window.

Unfortunately, while it is timesaving for hardware driver and application developers to write code for DirectX 8 (DX 8) specifically, it is not the only API out there. Particularly when it comes to 3-D graphics, the existence of OpenGL, and to a fading extent 3dfx's Glide, has forced on developers a difficult choice. They can either write for multiple APIs, which lengthens and complicates the development cycle, or they can focus on only one, with the likely possibility that certain hardware will not be able to run the code properly.

Mostly, though, DirectX is required, and newer products need the most recent version. Thus it is not a matter of asking whether you should make the upgrade from an earlier version of DX 8; eventually you will have no choice if you want to use new products.

But as with any new technology, you can still run into problems as an early adopter. Although DX 8 does strive for backward compatibility, hardware driver issues have traditionally been the most common difficulty. This applies especially to those who don't upgrade their component drivers regularly (and some 3-D graphics cards seem to have a new driver revision weekly). Should a problem arise, you cannot uninstall DirectX nor can you revert to a previous version unless you perform a total reinstallation of your Windows software.

But DX 8 does offer some enticing improvements. It has enhanced all of its seven major API groups: Direct3D (which we talked about earlier), DirectDraw, DirectInput, DirectMusic, DirectPlay, DirectSound, and DirectShow. There are many "under the hood" changes in DX 8 that developers will be excited about, including better integration among graphic and audio elements and revamped programming interfaces.

Although applications and hardware that show the new functionality were hard to come by, we obtained some beta products in order to demonstrate what users can expect to see once DX 8 implementation becomes more widespread. We looked at DX 8 from the perspective of the gamer, the 3-D graphics artist, and the audio/video enthusiast, but you can expect to see this API applied across virtually every aspect of the broad multimedia spectrum.

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